Re: Tougher approach to broadband service price claims on the way

Agree about the unlimited term for ones with restrictions but it's nice to see OFCOM doing something useful for once.... oh this is the advertising standards committee, no wonder something's getting done.

Now if they can just do something about Mobile phones 'advertising' 99% coverage and 4G at the same time and get them to show their actual real world coverage I'd be really impressed

Re: Tougher approach to broadband service price claims on the way

Never has been anything that is actually 'unlimited', because it can never be unlimited.

Taking 80Mbps fibre, going at lets say about 8MB/s, 24x7 for 30 days would give you a maximum of just under 20TB a month, definitely a finite amount.

Terms like 'unmetered', 'uncapped' or 'unrestricted' would be better, as they are at least a bit more accurate.

Unlimited to almost everyone means "all you can eat" and I would argue, does mean unlimited. There is a difference (at least IMO) between unlimited and infinite.

Aren't you actually agreeing? Bob's point was that if you ran your connection at 100% for the entire month then you'll end up with a "limit". However, I'd argue that his connection was still "unlimited" if the ISP doesn't throttle or put one of those "we put on this limit but you'll never reach it" settings.

Given I'm in the middle of switching providers though, I definitely agree with Dan Howdie's comment (in the article), we are still being "nickled and dimed" and it seems that you need the services of a tax lawyer and a spreadsheet to figure out what you're actually going to be charged.

Career status: still enjoying my new career in DevOps, but it's keeping me busy...

Re: Tougher approach to broadband service price claims on the way

Stating unlimited isnt truly unlimited because of your hard overhead of how much you can actually download your internet connection bandwidth over the time you have it live for is fascicious at best.

Unlimited is exactly what it says on the tin, you will not be restricted on how much you can download per month with your line speed.

What I hate and others similarly do are soft limits like "you've reached 60GB, you're being disconnected/shaped" when you have an "unlimited".

Not facetious at all. There is a finite amount of data you can down load in a given time at a given speed, and that will be variable because there will be times when you don't get that throughput. Perhaps "no imposed cap" might be more appropriate.

But effectively, as someone said earlier, it means "all you can eat" but that doesn't mean infinite bandwidth, so there will be limits based on the laws of physics.

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Re: Tougher approach to broadband service price claims on the way

Tbh, I just dislike the misuse of words in advertising and marketing BS.

The actual problem with unlimited is hidden caps that they apply randomly to "heavy users".

If an ISP says "unlimited" and then cuts you off or rate limits you after 100GB in a month, but this isnt mentioned in the T&C or in ANY adverts, thats not being greedy nor is it being facetious, its the ISP having a hard limit that is well below any actual physical limit imposed by the line speed.

Re: Tougher approach to broadband service price claims on the way

Originally Posted by BobF64

Tbh, I just dislike the misuse of words in advertising and marketing BS.

The actual problem with unlimited is hidden caps that they apply randomly to "heavy users".

If an ISP says "unlimited" and then cuts you off or rate limits you after 100GB in a month, but this isnt mentioned in the T&C or in ANY adverts, thats not being greedy nor is it being facetious, its the ISP having a hard limit that is well below any actual physical limit imposed by the line speed.

Those limits are soft limits and those are the ones that are completely ridiculous with "unlimited downloads!*" = *we are lying through our teeth and we will screw you over.

@peterb, I understand the laws of physics and the point being made but under the precept of "unlimited within the framework of your connection type and speed" is what I see as "unlimited". Agreeably I prefer the " all you can eat" moniker which three networks uses. I am on a contract which is all you can eat for both data and hotspotting and I'm debating whether to ever renegotiate because newer contracts are imposing restrictions on tethering. There is no asterisk but there is an abuse of faith clause that if you "misuse" it and are regularly over a massive amount for a mobile phone (60/100GB I think) consistently for a few months then later when you hit that number again you will be throttled to 2.3mbps. So it's a flexible soft limit.

As Bill Hicks said, marketing and advertising are Satan's Little Helpers and are the ruiners of all things good xD

Re: Tougher approach to broadband service price claims on the way

Those limits are soft limits and those are the ones that are completely ridiculous with "unlimited downloads!*" = *we are lying through our teeth and we will screw you over.

Exactly, although not necessarily lying or trying to screw any one over, just not being clear and upfront about anything.

It comes down to statistics, and you can see that every time an ISP "punishes" heavy users, phrases like "this will not affect the majority of our users" and "it only affects a small number of excessive users" spring to mind.

If there are soft limits, they should be clearly stated, which would make them hard limits.

Re: Tougher approach to broadband service price claims on the way

My broadband is shambolic as of late. I get buffering at least 3 or 4 times everytime I'm on Netflix, at first I put it down to Netflix servers. But started to notice it each time I was on Netflix, played my mate online (PS4) had lag issues.

Not happy with the speeds I'm getting considering what I am paying for.